May 23, 2013 — A University of British Columbia engineer and a team of U.S. researchers have made a breakthrough utilizing spray-on technology that could revolutionize the way optical lenses are made and used.

Nearly all lenses -- whether in an eye, a camera, or a microscope -- are presently curved, which limits the aperture, or amount of light that enters.

"The idea of a flat lens goes way back to the 1960s when a Russian physicist came up with the theory," Chau says. "The challenge is that there are no naturally occurring materials to make that type of flat lens. Through trial and error, and years of research, we have come up with a fairly simple recipe for a spray-on material that can act as that flat lens."